61 Inquisitor Guide: Ranged DPS Cleric

Inquisitor is arguably one of the most solid, all-around souls in the game. It can be used in every aspect of the game and perform outstandingly. Whether you’re looking for a decent leveling build to quickly slice through mobs, mash out some serious numbers on the damage meters in endgame raids, dominate Warfronts with fast, hard-hitting bolts or go back and solo old content, Inquisitor has tools for every job! In this guide, I’m going to be showing you how to get the most out of Inquisitor in almost every scenario.

Strengths:
•Highest ranged DPS build currently in the game
•Strong burst damage
•Good target switching capabilities
•Viable in all aspects of the Game (soloing, raiding, PvP, dungeons etc.)
•Possesses both an interrupt and purge

Weaknesses:
•Slightly behind on damage in comparison to both Shaman/Druid
•A bit more complex rotation-wise than Shaman and Druid

The Build:

There are two different variants of this build. Which one you use depends on the circumstances of each fight. They both slightly differ, but also bring different things to the table. Also, for players who haven’t purchased the Storm Legion souls and do not have access to Defiler, I’ve attached an additional spec that will play out the same but deal slightly less damage.

This is currently the highest damaging version of the 61 Inquisitor build. The problem with this build is that to get a higher output than the other variant, your health needs to be above 90% at least 80% of the time. This build also has the pros of having a dispel and additional self healing from Justicar on every attack. This makes it quite a strong and sturdy build for solo gameplay and soloing old content. However, if you’re going to solo old content (raids for example), it is likely your health will be below 90% the majority of the time, so if you are using this build purely for soloing you can also move 5 points from Defiler to Justicar for 10% Endurance.

This is the alternate build that you should use on fights with a lot of raid damage going out where at least 80% of the time your health is below 90%. The build opts out the 5 points in Defiler that provide a 10% damage increase when you’re over 90% for 5 points in Cabalist, which gives you 10% increased Wisdom. You lose both the dispel and the self-healing from Justicar with this build. You gain a few Cabalist abilities, but they’re all fairly useless and should be left out of the Inquisitor rotation.

If you do not have access to the Storm Legion souls, this is the best build for you. Not having Defiler means that you’re losing out on both Rage Blight and Blighted Greed, which provide a 5% damage bonus. You will also not have the self-heal utility spell Loathsome Restoration or Marrow harvest for when you are facing away from a target. You will, however, get Shield of Oak, an off-GCD shield that provides a small damage reduction.

Armor of Awakening
Spiritual Scrutiny
Shroud of Agony
Rage Blight
Blighted Greed (applied to Defiler when possible– if no Defiler, apply to the tank taking the most regular hits)

Single Target Priority List:

1. Scourge2. Vex3. Sanction Heretic4. Instant cast Bolt of Depravity5. Nysyr’s Rebuke (Note: When Radical Coalescence is off cooldown, you want to use Nysyr’s Rebuke with the cooldown rotation listed below)6. Bolt of Retribution ONLY if you have stacks of Echoing Concord7. Bolt of Judgement8. (Not mentioned in the video) If you are facing away from the target for whatever reason, Marrow Harvest

AoE Priority List (3 or more targets):

1. Soul Drain2. Circle of Oblivion3. Scourge

Macros:

Inquisitor has only one macro worth using which is combining Fanaticism with Bolt of Depravity. If you macro any other abilities, it will result in a DPS loss.

The single target rotation is as simple as following the priority list above. The basic way to help this spec flow correctly is to ensure that you have all your damage over time abilities (Scourge, Vex, Sanction Heretic) on the target and then work on building 5 stacks of Life and Death Concord with Bolt of Retribution and Bolt of Judgement. As soon as you reach 5 stacks, you will want to cast a Bolt of Depravity.

So not factoring in cooldowns, your standard rotation would begin as such:

From then on it’s just as simple as following the priority list above. As a side note, usually after your first insta-cast Bolt of Depravity, your raid cooldowns are active so you will want to start the cooldown rotation as listed below.

Cooldowns:

You want to make the most of Radical Coalescence, which expands your rotation a bit. If pulled off correctly, this will give you a huge boost to DPS.

You will notice your Soul Drain has a 10 second cooldown while Circle of Oblivion only has a 7 second channeled duration. This means there is a 2-3 second gap between using another Soul Drain after you’ve cast Circle of Oblivion. Use this time to quickly tab through and put a Scourge on the mobs with the highest health and then rinse and repeat the rotation.

Notes:

Seatin you crazy foo Y U no Ahov (Dark Water) guide?

Ahov’s 61 Inqui spec relies on keeping up and maintaining 3 stacks of Dark Water and is only a very minor DPS increase (500-700). This is provided you never let the stacks drop and refresh Dark Water within the 1-3s of it falling off.

As your DPS takes a bit of a hit initially, getting these stacks up makes it a sub-par build for any fights that last under a minute. If the stacks drop off or you are playing the build too safe and refreshing the stacks too often, you’re going to continually lose DPS.

Now, realistically for most of the raiding fights in Storm Legion, you are not going to have the opportunity to perfect those stacks very often. Let’s just use Frozen Tempest and Endless Eclipse as an example of why you won’t be able to keep stacks up or if you do it will result in either a DPS loss or a danger to the raid because you’re too busy refreshing dots to pay attention to mechanics:

Gelidra: Add phase and target switching. You will either let the stacks drop off or waste time and GCDs trying to keep them up on a 99% damage immune Gelidra.Zaviel: Conduit Phase. You will either let the stacks drop off or waste time and GCDs trying to keep them up on a completely damage immune Zaviel.Twins: May be worthwhile provided your DPS is perfectly balanced. If, however, one is ahead (which is often the case), you’re either going to risk pushing one too far or lose your stacks target switching.Crucia: Tons of short, bursty add phases. Need I say more?

Prog: Bursty target switching galore.Kain: Short, bursty add phases. May be better for DPS in the last phase.Matriarch: If you can manage to keep the stacks up on Matriarch while you are also burning the child, Ahov’s spec may be better!Goloch: Since it’s a straight up nuke, this is one of the fights that 10 Cab/5 Defiler– if played correctly– will beat 15 Defiler.Regulos: Target switching and platform phases galore.

So, unless you have next-level Ahov skills, the spec this guide is suggesting will usually trump 10 Cab/5 Defiler.

As always, please feel free to correct me on anything I may have gotten wrong.

> As always, please feel free to correct me on anything I may have gotten wrong.

The word meaning the opposite of “win” is spelled “lose”. The word you used is the opposite of “tight”.

Ryxka

Ahov’s guide says to stack dark water all at once in a fight but I found it much easier using his spec to just toss dark water in randomly throughout my rotation. Thereby gradually building the stacks to 3 while still moving or using other abilities. Now if we are just straight burning something like the last boss in TDQ then yeah I will just stack them all at once. Great guide though and people should have more than one option on how they would like to play.

Another Anonymous Coward

Circle of Oblivion is only good up to 5 targets. Anything more than that I rather use Cabalist’s Bound Fate after using a critting Soul Drain.

awaken_the_world

SWEET GUIDE MAN

Sky

One thing is unclear to me…it says Points in Cabalist increase damage by 1%, does this mean each point?
so if i put 15 points in Cabalist…it’ll add 15% dmg?

Mizzet

That is correct, but all of the offensive souls for Cleric say the same thing.

Mizzet

So, one thing I haven’t been able to find the answer to anywhere, why does nobody use Spiritual deficiency? I understand it would only be useful in times where you’re going to get a long duration, but shouldn’t it be used on say, boss fights? is it just not worth the GCD?

Nonnamed

It can be in 5mans, and if most of the other dps deal mostly magic type dmg instead of physical. It’s not used in larger group situations due to the Archon cast Crumbling Resistance being superior (5mins) If no Archon in raid (relatively common in 10mans) then the Bards use Coda of Distress instead.

Anonymous

Why would you cast Bolt of Judgement over Bolt of Retribution if they have the same cooldown but Retribution does more damage?

Anonymous

Couldn’t you just cast Bolt of Retribution 5 times until you can instantly cast Bolt of Depravity?

Anonymous

Never mind ignore everything I just said, I have yet to max out the Inquisitor tree and I just noticed what Spiritual Scrutiny does. My apologies for not reading everything closely beforehand.

Aruetyc

Still, though, why cast bolt of judgement on stacks of echoing concord? I don’t see anything about echoing concord that makes up for spiritual scrutiny as far as bolt of judgement is concerned.

Is it just an instant cast issue since the GCD will be so low on stacks of echoing concord?

JRSid

Here is how i handle this. I never use BoR or BoJ when doing my cds. when using Radical Coalescence I noticed that Sanction Heretic is reset as well. It also adds a stack to echoing which in turn will give me another proc which in turn gives me 8 or so stacks for my BoR. So after my cd phase is is when I blow all of my BoR stacks. Which in turn causes my dps to reach 20k. I have tried what was said in this guild and using a BoR to get a new Proc for my BoD only dropped my dps down when I used the stacks of BoR. When i start a fight I use the same rotation i get 4 stacks for my BoR then I basically use my cd to reset everything pop my 2 dots then the other dot and use my channle then get a new proc use my macro for BoD and I have 8 stacks then I blow all 8 stacks of my BoR. That to me sounds alot better then blowing 1 BoR just to get the proc when the dot does it anyway.